OSX Quick Tip: 2 for 1 Alias Tips

One of the things I find the most useful about the Alias feature in OSX is the ability to have files remotely stored on NAS, and still play them as though they were locally on your system.

To do that, all you have to do is create an Alias of any file you have. For example, if you have a video file on an external hard drive that is sitting in a closet somewhere, you can simply create an Alias of it on the desktop, in the iTunes Music folder…whereever…and your Mac will play it as though it was locally stored on your system.

That’s tip #1 in case you didn’t know about it…

Tip #2 addresses on of the things I dislike about it. It’s a minor gripe to be sure, but I hate that the file always has the word “alias” after the file. If you want to create alias files without that word appearing, you can actually do it pretty easily. Here’s how…

Hold down the Option and Command Keys, and drag the file where you want it to go outside the Finder window (the desktop is the quickest place to do this, of course). The created file will be an alias, but it won’t say “alias” in the file name. You can still tell that it is an alias file by the little arrow on the lower side of the icon, though.